It Starts Small

¹⁶ But Ruth said, “Do not urge me to leave you or to return from following you. For where you go I will go, and where you lodge I will lodge. Your people shall be my people, and your God my God. ¹⁷ Where you die I will die, and there will I be buried. May the Lord do so to me and more also if anything but death parts me from you.”

Ruth 1:16-17

The book of Ruth takes place at the same time as Judges. In Judges, “everyone did what was right in their own eyes.” These words Ruth spoke are famous. They are repeated in man made wedding vows as wedding ceremonies. The story of Ruth is one of the greatest love stories, but even greater is Jesus’ love story for us, and their story is a story about the redemption of God. It contrasts the wisdom of God with the wisdom of man. Ruth and the other central characters do what is right in the eyes of God.

The story opens with Naomi, Ruth’s mother in law. She is in despair and broken-hearted and she feels cursed. Her husband and sons have died. She is an older widow and has no future. She decides to return her homeland of Judah and persuades her daughter in laws to return to their families. She feels they must leave her or else they will be assigned the same hopeless fate as her. These daughter in laws were Moabite women and not Jews. They faced better odds with their own than living among the Jews.

Ruth takes a huge step of faith and defies all human logic. She decides to follow Naomi and God. Naomi reluctantly allows her to tag along when she sees there is no hope in getting her to change her mind. If we read her reply again, how could Naomi change her mind?

They return to Bethlehem and Naomi continues her lament to the point she even changes her name. She renames herself Mara which means bitter.

(You want to read a really interesting story about bitterness, read Exodus 15:22-26. Marah means bitterness, and we get to see an example of how Christ can take our bitter hearts and cleanse them)

In her deep depression and bitterness, Naomi does not see she has returned with a blessing. Something beautiful to note is at the beginning of the story there was a famine. This is how they wound up in Moab to begin with. When they returned to Jerusalem, they were returning to the “house of bread.” God was working behind in the background this while time to being redemption of His people and all of humanity.

The beginning of Ruth starts out with anguish and despair. In the end we see one of the greatest blessings in scriptures. Ruth’s marriage to Boaz sets up the genealogical line that will lead to the greatest redemption of all: Jesus. While things seemed hopeless and fruitless from a human standpoint, God was working int he background to protect and redeem those who stay faithful to Him. The Lord did it in a way that was more glorious and unimaginable than any human could comprehend.

We learn through Ruth that the pursuit of righteousness is to vow, or commit, our way to the Lord and mean every word of It. To intentionally seek Him.

We can rewrite Ruth’s word into our commitment with Him.

Today, let us ponder our commitments.

Who do we have a commitment with? The world, ourselves, or God?
What commitments have we made that we are not honoring?

---